YC-backed Diligent AI raises €2.1 million to automate KYC and AML workflows using AI agents

Diligent AI, a London-and Berlin-based startup building autonomous AI analysts for financial crime compliance, today announced that it has raised €2.1 million ($2.5 million) in Seed funding to expand its engineering capabilities and accelerate the rollout of its agents across the UK and Europe. 

The round was led by Speedinvest alongside FinTech investor Shapers, with continued participation from Y Combinator. The CEOs and founders of N26, Allica Bank, IDnow, Billie, and Cybersource have also participated in this round. 

Edoardo Maschio, CEO and co-founder of Diligent AI, said, “We are building this for the analysts. When you strip away repetitive tasks – like clearing false positive alerts, searching corporate registries and public records, cross-referencing adverse media – you free up the human mind to focus on judgment and strategy. It’s decision-making instead of data processing. We’re not just making teams faster; we’re enabling them to do the job they were hired to do.”

Across 2025–2026, EU-Startups coverage shows continued investment in European startups addressing compliance, risk management, and financial crime prevention, including AML screening, fraud detection, and workflow automation. Reported rounds include earlier-stage financings such as FALKIN’s €1.7 million pre-Seed and Innerworks’ €3.7 million Seed round.  Larger rounds include Bits’ €12 million Series A, Resistant AI’s €21 million Series B, Hawk’s €51.8 million Series C, and decision-automation platform Taktile’s €51.5 million Series B.

Founded in 2023 by Edoardo Maschio (ex BCG consultant and investor at Rocket Internet) and Ahmed Gaber (ex CTO of Europe’s largest B2B BNPL and payment platform Billie), Diligent AI builds AI agents for financial crime compliance. 

The platform claims to automate reasoning-heavy processes such as AML screening and merchant due diligence, helping institutions reduce operational costs while improving risk detection.

According to the Y Combinator-backed startup, frontline KYC/AML teams today are fighting an asymmetric war. The growth of global sanctions as a political tool, the explosion of fraud and scams, and the sheer velocity of digital payments have placed these teams under unprecedented pressure.

“The work has become mundane and overwhelming. Highly skilled professionals who signed up to fight criminals are stuck in loops of repetitive data gathering and box-checking. They’re forced to prioritise speed over depth, doing a lot of due diligence, rather than the best due diligence,” the company mentioned in the press release. 

The company replaces static compliance workflows with autonomous AI analysts that can read, reason, and investigate. Its agents automate routine KYC and AML tasks, including reviewing SMB risk profiles, analysing adverse media, and resolving sanctions and payment screening alerts, as well as handling information gathering and contextual analysis that traditionally required manual effort.

Julien Lézé, FinTech investor at Speedinvest, said, “Banks and fintechs already face high costs from large compliance teams and increasing regulatory scrutiny. As AI drives an exponential rise in the volume and sophistication of fraud, compliance operations cannot scale proportionally. The only viable path forward for financial institutions is to fight fire with fire – AI with AI.”

Diligent’s agents are deployed across financial institutions in Europe, the Middle East, the US, and Japan, including Flywire, Allica Bank, Alma, Teya, and Tamara. These institutions use Diligent to resolve sanctions, PEP, and adverse media alerts, conduct in-depth merchant risk reviews, and streamline customer onboarding.

The company reported that customers experienced notable savings and improved decision quality. It notes that standardising the investigation process ensures consistent, rigorous reviews of alerts and due diligence tasks around the clock, preventing fatigue.

With this fresh capital, the company will invest in significant product expansion, launching new AI agents for additional task archetypes, strengthening its existing product suite, and expanding its go-to-market team to support customers globally. It is also hiring across the board, from backend and machine learning engineers to go-to-market associates.

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